DISCOURAGING WORDS...

Took a survey from the Future of Music people; they wanted to know how us independent (i.e., non-record company controlled) musicians were doing in the New and Modern World. This independent musician is not doing well, thank you. How much money have I made in royalties from radio stations playing my songs? None. From movie and TV placements of my songs? None. From ringtones? None. (Nice idea though.) From record sales? From the new album, not enough—yet—to make back production costs. (That’s true of most of the Big Boys, too, but my production costs have a lot fewer digits than theirs.) From online sales? Some, but not enough for CDBaby to send me a check. From performances? Twice as much as last year, but still not enough to make even one mortgage payment. From session work? I have actually done some, but it was as a favor to friends, and no, I never got paid or asked to be. From teaching music? None. (That New and Modern World wants you to have a degree in that stuff—and one in teaching, too—before they’ll let you teach.) Blog? Yes, I have one of those—and 62 people from Latvia read it and I don’t know why. And no, I’ve never made any money off that, either.

The question is regularly asked on writers’ sites, “Would you still be writing if there was no money in it?” I can answer that question easily, because there is no money in it and I’m still doing it.

Money isn’t everything, of course. (It just helps with the food, shelter, &c.) I decided some time ago I couldn’t live without writing, and so I write; the stuff has to get exposed to people somehow, because there’s no other way to tell whether it’s good or not—and I end up performing it because no one else will. Everything else developed from there. I recorded an album to get the stuff more exposure (and now have three of them); I formed my own record company and publishing company because no one else was interested, and just might know enough now to be able to help somebody else. And the blog was just to keep track of what I was doing—and maybe to hope that someone reading it might have a shorter journey by not having to make the same mistakes I did. (It’s also great practice writing.)

So fortune eludes me, fame I may already have some of, and both are extraneous to the need to write and to get better at it. It does mean that I have to have a job doing something else to take care of the food, shelter, &c. And three years into the economic collapse, I have no idea what that is. It is apparently not what I’ve done in the past. At this point, I’ve got five city-manager applications in the pipeline, and I’m not seriously expecting to hear good things from any of them (though I’ll know for sure by the end of the month). After I’ve gotten rejection letters from all of them, I think it’ll be time to go do something else. What? No idea. I guess that’s part of the journey, too.

All the foregoing discouraging words are at least in part a reflection of the general discouragement that’s going on worldwide. And the more people get upset, and the more upset they get, the nastier they get about it, it seems; it’s a little like watching a progressive epidemic of rabies. I suppose that’s the general theme I’m ending up with in the “Samba with the Llamas” song: yup, things look bad; nope, they do not make sense (that’s why the lyrics are essentially nonsense with political overtones); all you may be able to do is stay away from it so as not to get infected. And you might as well dance. No, it’s not a solution—but as the Hindu deity Ganesha (the elephant-headed guy) maintained, if dancing doesn’t make the situation better, at least it makes you feel better. Myself, I don’t dance—but I’d be happy to write and play the dance music. And I’ll feel better.

Joe

ULAN BATOR...

In Going Bovine, by Libba Bray, the protagonist, a high-school kid diagnosed with fatal Mad Cow Disease (hence the title), escapes from the hospital on a quest to find—within two weeks—the one doctor who can cure him (he has to save the world at the same time). The kid fails—turns out there is no cure and never was one—and he dies. His complaint to the angel who sent him on the quest: “But I wanted to live!” And the angel tells him, look, you traveled all over the place; you made a new best friend; you changed a bunch of people’s lives and may even have saved one; you stole from a drug dealer; you were hunted by the police; you played bass with one of the best jazz musicians on the planet; you saved the world; and you lost your virginity to the chick you had the hots for in school—haven’t you lived?

I want to go to Ulan Bator. (Not “I think I want to go”; one piece of advice I got years ago from Stan Sheldon when he was Mayor of Garibaldi and I the city administrator was, “Never say ‘I think.’ You’re the expert. You don’t ‘think.’ You know.” Why Ulan Bator? It’s remote, I’ve never been there, and it’s somewhere I have no preconceived notions about. I’ve never really been outside this country (Tijuana and the Virgin Islands don’t exactly count)—and like the video (the new one) says, if you’re going to do it, you might as well go all the way.

Thing is, I want to go there as a musician, and be playing a concert. There is some work involved in that: I know no one in Mongolia, and have no fans there that I know of. I’d have a better shot in Latvia, where according to Google there are 29 people reading the blog (though I have no idea who they are or why they’re doing it). I have a little experience breaking into new markets—all small, of course, and the people did mostly speak English—and they were markets where people didn’t previously listen to country music. I wonder if that’d be enough to start with? I’ll have to try. (And I can try to develop a fan base in Latvia while I’m at it.)

The “Twenty-Four Seven” video is done and uploaded. (I probably should say a DRAFT is done and uploaded; and it is in fact the third draft.) The new video software—something called “Prism”—has some limitations, but it works enough like Windows Movie Maker and its Macintosh equivalent so the learning curve wasn’t too bad. In the same vein, Photoshop Limited Edition does pretty much the same stuff that Photo Deluxe used to do.

Link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBxyb7NoUW0 The photos themselves were all taken in Tillamook County, between Tillamook and Mohler (where The Cow Nobody Wanted is, in front of the Grange); the two communities are about 25 miles apart. I don’t know if I could have done better or not. The experimental part—besides using all that different software—was combining video (of the Rap) with “French style” slide show (of the song). And next? We could intersperse video with still photography. Or we could do one that was all video, but interspersed clips. (That latter might be easier—and I think it’s how the pros do it.)

The video of “Blue Krishna,” when it’s finished, will be all interspersed video clips, but it’ll be fan-generated—the result of the old digital camera being forwarded around to different people. I want to do one myself, too. I’d like to film me playing the “base” track on the guitar, then extract the audio track, add lead and maybe other instruments and film little clips of them, and put that together. I wonder which song would be good for that?

Lazarus’ new keyboard has arrived. Work to do…

Joe

THE VIDEO--AND A "COMPLAINT CHOIR"?

Working on the video… A lot of the photos I took were dark (it is dark around here a lot because of the clouds and rain) and I have been fixing that, photo by photo. I also have a habit of taking photos of a wider area than I need, planning on cropping what I need later. (I have cropping to do, too, in other words.) It’s a far cry from the days of black-and-white 35mm cameras, when you had to frame each shot very carefully because the lab in San Francisco was going to give you back—just in time for your deadline—exactly what you gave them. Technology allows you to be sloppy—not necessarily a good thing.

My old (1996) Adobe Photo Deluxe photo-manipulation software is finally dead, and I couldn’t find the Jasc software I’d acquired some years back as a replacement, but my old (1998) PageMaker program came with an early “limited edition” of Photoshop, and that’ll work for my purposes. Downloaded Windows Movie Maker, and a copy of the recording of “Twenty-Four Seven” off Soundclick. Guess I’m ready. I’ll need photos—or film—to display during the Rap, too. I’d forgotten about that. I wonder if I could use the Webcam and just film me talking? I haven’t done that yet.

Got appointed entertainment chairman for Garibaldi Days. I had told them I didn’t want to do that—I just wanted to make sure they knew the band wanted to play—and they told me the best way to ensure that was to have me in charge of entertainment. (I knew that, but I wasn’t after the obvious conflict of interest.) I think basically, they want the band to play anyway. I think we did put on a good show last July.

So I get—again—to tell all the musicians I know that I’m looking for entertainment. Just like the Relay for Life, this’ll be a freebie (though unlike the Relay for Life, I won’t be trying to find entertainers to perform in the middle of the night), and to the extent possible, I’ll be after only local (Tillamook County) acts. I have a feeling there are plenty. Is it possible to fill the entire time between the end of the parade and the time (early evening) when the paid bands start performing at the taverns? I think so.

The best everybody gets is exposure (because we can publicize the heck out of their being there), tips, and the ability to sell CDs and other “merch.” (Down the road, when the festival is a lot bigger, entertainment can get paid. That’s not now.) I think I can rig publicity so these local entertainers get a lot of bang in lieu of not getting any bucks.

Writers’ group meeting was good—not many people, but lots of ideas, and that’s what’s important. Ever hear of a “complaint choir”? Envision a gaggle of Victorian-dressed carolers descending on a public place—and singing pointed hymns about current events. First one I got was from Bobbie, one of our poets, and it’s a sweet little ode directed at Rockaway Beach, our local role model for a dysfunctional government. It needs music, and I’ll do my best to provide some. A cross between “Good King Wenceslas” and a sea chanty, I think. We’ll each bring a “complaint carol” in either musical or poetic form to next Tuesday’s meeting. If we can polish and practice them enough, we could surprise the audience at the November 5 open mike with them. The other thing I asked everyone to do is bring something of their own to the meeting that they’d want to perform at the open mike, and we’ll work on polishing those, too. We have a couple more sessions before the open mike happens.

And just a couple of odd opportunities—not income-producing ones, of course, just fun ones. It was suggested at the Writers’ Group meeting that I had a song the Occupy Portland demonstrators might well be able to use as a theme song—“Final Payment,” the late Gem Watson’s sweet-but-caustic Gospelly number that’s been a regular inclusion in Deathgrass’ Failed Economy Show concerts. No, nobody’s exactly in charge of the Occupy Portland “movement” (I noted that in an earlier blog), but I do know a couple of folks who’ve been going down there; as I’m fond of saying, “I know people.” And there’s a group in Kentucky that’s reportedly planning a big party—with live music—for the upcoming Prob’ly-Not-Going-to-Happen-This-Time-Either Rapture, and I’ve asked whether I could send them “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?”

Joe

RELAY FOR LIFE, COMPUTER REPAIR AND THE SAMBA...

I should turn into a computer hardware person for a while. A friend replaced the keyboard on his Dell laptop, and said it wasn’t too much of a pain; Lazarus’ keyboard is different, though (Dell was getting as bad as IBM with their “every model must be completely different” mantra)—non-standard shape, and all—but it turns out I can get a replacement keyboard online (and cheaper than going to a repair place) and according to the instructional video, it’s not hard to install. That’d be more professional-looking, too, than hooking up a standard keyboard to Lazz through the USB port.

And if that works, I should consider repairing on my own “Justin,” the big Dell desktop I bought surplus from the Farmer’s Market. I think—but have no way to test—that the reason “Justin” isn’t working is his on/off switch is broken. Solution if that’s the case is to replace the on/off switch. Justin, I was told by the expert who tore into it for me, is a custom-built “gamer’s” computer, with oodles of RAM, a big hard drive, and very high-resolution graphics—exactly what I need for my work. If replacing the on/off switch is as easy as I think replacing Lazarus’ keyboard will be, it’d be a lot cheaper to do that instead of taking a day to trek to Portland with it.

Words that rhyme with “samba”: I’ve already used “Hamas,” “drama,” “mama” and “pajamas” (yes, they all can be made to rhyme). “Okhrana” (the Russian Czar’s secret police), “Donder” (the reindeer) and “lambda” (the Greek letter) are probably too obscure, and “Osama” and “Obama” too current-events (I’d said I didn’t mind, but there are limits). “Dalai Lama” would probably be okay, though (I knew—an aside—somebody who had a llama named “Dolly”), and so would “McDonalds.” And “trauma,” “sauna,” and even “bomber” and “manana.” Yes, they will all rhyme when I’m done with ‘em. More?

I don’t have to have everything rhyme with “samba,” of course; in that first (and at this point only) verse, I’ve also got “Wall Street” and “Main Street,” and “proper” and “opera,” and in the ending tag line there’s “December” and “remember.” But the more words I have trying to rhyme with “samba,” the more sense it will appear to make. I have no hope of it really making sense; we will have to rely on appearances.

Though I refuse to force these things, I would like to be done with it before the weekend; I have a class to help teach on Friday, a funeral to attend Saturday—and maybe a writing seminar to attend, too.

A lady in the audience at the library Saturday videotaped me playing “Naked Space Hamsters in Love” with the group; she did ask if she could post it on YouTube (and the answer to that one is always “yes”), but I haven’t seen it yet. I got to hit up the musicians—the rest of them are collectively the Ocean Bottom Blues Band—about performing at the 2012 Relay for Life July 7-8, and they’re interested. I’ll hit up the folks at the Rapture Room tonight, too; there are folks from two or three bands that regularly come to that. I expect the hardest part will be finding bands willing to play in the middle of the night—but the event is a 24-hour one and somebody has to. And the Relay folks don’t want just bands, either—they’d like all sorts of acts. There are three dance schools in Tillamook, and the square dancers (if there are enough of them around during the winter)—but I know some unconventional entertainers, too. How would Relay for Life feel about standup comedy? Or a fire dancer? (That would be cool in the middle of the night.) I’ll have to ask…

Joe

OF TSUNAMIS AND SAMBAS...

Well, the Tsunami Grill was fun. Small turnout because of the Oregon Ducks game, and that meant I got to play more stuff, which was nice—but what I really go there for is the chance to play lead guitar to (mostly) rock ‘n’ roll music. I wouldn’t call it “practice,” because I’m trying to be perfect when I do it, and I don’t have many chances to do it. With a few exceptions, the cover songs the other musicians are playing are things I’ve never heard the originals of, so I’m not trying to recreate somebody else’s lead; I just do something that I think fits in. Hopefully, it does.

(And what I do isn’t actually lead work. It’s simply competent—and interesting—rhythm, that’s capable of standing on its own as an in-lieu-of lead if no one else is playing lead—which last night was often the case. I’m still pursuing the role that was marked out for me some years back by a rock band I played with that did a lot of Beatles covers. They wanted me to be their John Lennon, and I decided he wasn’t a bad role model: a competent rhythm guitarist who could sometimes play lead. And wrote stuff.)

I was asked at the Tsunami when my next gig was and had to admit I didn’t have any lined up. I should take care of that. (I said that before but haven’t done anything about it.) I don’t mind playing solo for free and just having the Ugly Orange Bucket out for tips and trying to sell CDs; if I’m playing with the band, though, I want the band to get paid.

Just a few more photos to take for the “Twenty-Four Seven” music video. I need to photograph copies of Great Expectations and Fear of Flying at the library, the lighthouse at God’s Lighthouse church, the billboard in Garibaldi advertising the 2-foot long jerky, the “free hearing tests” sandwich board in Tillamook, the golf course sign next to the cheese factory, the arcade and espresso stand and one of the “Thanks for Visiting!” signs in Rockaway, and The Cow Nobody Wanted up at the Mohler Grange (which ultimately decided they did want it). And then I think I’ll have everything and can begin putting the video together.

“Samba with the Llamas” started to turn political, and I decided I’d let it; it’s likely to be a throwaway anyway, since it’s got (presently) a rather nonsensical (albeit risqué-sounding) tag line. It’s okay if the song talks about current events—I’m not hitting for “timeless classic” here. And I can always safeguard my reputation as a nonpolitical writer by telling folks, “This is a Southern Pigfish song.” They do the politically-charged stuff. I don’t.

One thing I will need before I’m done is a whole lot more words that rhyme, or almost rhyme, with “samba.” Since I refuse on principle to use a rhyming dictionary, I’ll be dependent on what I come up with myself and what suggestions I get from others. (That was a hint, folks.)

I always try to figure out where melodies come from. This one’s bouncy, danceable melody, near as I can figure out, was partly robbed from Jimmy Buffett, partly from the Beach Boys, partly from Stan Good’s “Real Good Coffee and a Real Good Wife” (which I musicated) and partly from Don Varnell’s “Another Crappy Christmas” (which I also musicated). Put ‘em all together, with a few extraneous beats, and it does sound original.

I have no idea whether it’s a real samba or not. I haven’t danced the samba since I took ballroom dancing in junior high school. And if I’m attributing the song to Southern Pigfish, it doesn’t matter. What would a folk-rock band from Arkansas know about sambas?

Music Saturday at the library, and Sunday night at the Rapture Room. Opportunities to remind everyone that I’m the entertainment chairperson for the local Relay for Life campaign, and I want them to perform. July 7-8 at the county fairgrounds.

Joe

UPDATES...

Stuff to do… “Lazarus” the laptop needs to learn some more programs, mostly of the graphic-design variety; if he’s going to be the “basic” computer he needs to be able to do more basic stuff. Really important is going to be equipping him with a conventional keyboard (one without 3 missing keys, in other words). For the nonce, all the desktop computers—the nearly-new Dell that doesn’t work, the short-on-brains Compaq I got as a temporary replacement for “Alice,” and old “StuartLittle” the semi-portable, can go out to the garage studio. Once I clean the studio, of course.

I am slowly compiling a list of things that need to be done on a trip to Portland, and I’ll endeavor to do them all on the same day; if I’m going to invest $40 in gas, I’m determined to be efficient about it. There’s an employment consultant who’s asked me to come see her, an interim city manager I want to visit with about becoming his permanent replacement, and some computer parts to score—and I’d take the Dell to a professional computer geek if I could find one there. If I could arrange to do a performance while I was in Portland, either at Eric John Kaiser’s Songwriter Showcase (which is on Tuesday nights) or Whitney Streed’s Tonic Lounge comedy night (Wednesday nights), that’d be perfect.

What to perform? I haven’t written anything new lately (but there are some more risqué numbers Whitney’s people have not heard yet—I could do those). And with the looming possibility I could end up with an interim city manager job in short order, I should probably schedule this trip right away. Of course, my track record at landing job interviews hasn’t been particularly stellar of late—but there’s no real excuse for delaying the trip (and the longer I wait, the worse the weather’s going to get, too).

Last two meetings of the writers’ group have had only two people. I fear we are headed for irrelevance, here. I think the assignment I’ll give everybody is to prepare for next Tuesday something to perform at the upcoming open mike at the Arts Center Saturday, Nov. 5; that’ll give us maybe two more meetings in which to polish it. After that, if we haven’t garnered more participation I’m going to have to pull the plug on it.

And that “preparing something” includes me, too. The Coventry songwriters group wanted a “dance song” this month, and I just might be able to deliver. Something happy, bouncy and thoroughly devoid of meaning (at least right now—it might acquire meaning later, as these things sometimes do). Tentative title: “Samba with the Llamas.” And in case anyone was wondering, no, it is unlikely any of the llamas will die.

And a couple of extraneous notes. I got approached by one of the fellows involved in the Food Pantry; he’s trying to put together a Christmas toy drive, and wanted to know if Deathgrass could put on a toys-instead-of-food benefit concert. I bet we could. And I’ve been tapped to round up and organize the entertainment for next year’s Relay for Life, a 24-hour anti-cancer run; I think the assumption was that I know a lot of musicians (I mentioned that to somebody, and they told me that yes, I do know a lot of musicians).

Music Thursday night at the Tsunami Grill, and Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook Library, I think. Friday? I don’t know. My time might be better used getting some recording done. And I still want to finish the “Twenty-Four Seven” video.

Joe

A MUSIC WEEKEND...

The Hoffman Center crowd really liked “Pole Dancing for Jesus”; I think it got the best applause all evening. Don’t know how to translate that into an income, but I’m definitely getting known. Met another writer who was also performing, and encouraged him to come to the Sunday night jam at the Rapture Room.

Went to play with the Friday Night Group at City Hall but there weren’t many performers there, or much audience, either; Elsie (accordion) and I were about the only ones who could play lead. I had heard from a couple former regulars (who weren’t there, and may not be back) that they, too, had gotten frustrated by the couple of people who can’t keep time, can’t play in tune and don’t seem to be learning—but keep coming to play. I understand. I expect I have a higher frustration level than most folks, having been a city manager, but I haven’t gone much lately myself. I don’t run the show so I can’t change anything. All I can do is not be there. No offense to the non-frustrating folks there—but I want to be playing music on Friday nights and would rather be doing it somewhere more productive.

Without a high level of expertise in the group, I had to stick to the familiar, so the crowd (using the term loosely) got Leon Payne’s “Lost Highway,” “Pole Dancing for Jesus,” “Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues” (because somebody requested it) and Hank Williams’ “You Win Again” (the only Hank song I can actually sing). One out-of-town fellow in the audience asked me how long I’d been playing guitar; when I told him 30-odd years, he nodded, and said “I figured—you sound just like those old guys.” I think it was a compliment. (He was a Hank Williams fan.)

Since the Train Set gig was cancelled, I went to play music at the library (good crew of musicians there, all of whom used to play on Fridays at City Hall), and they got “One: I Love You,” “In the Shadows I’ll Be Watching You,” “Leavin’ It to Beaver” (which I almost never play because it’s so long) and “Naked Space Hamsters in Love,” along with “Pole Dancing” (I was trying to practice that one a lot). At the Arts Center’s reception for the Shoe Project, there seemed to be a bunch of people crowded around my piece, which plays Donna Devine’s “Sometimes She Could Scream.” Hopefully, they were listening—and hopefully they liked it.

What’s next? I really don’t have anything on the horizon, so I need to make something happen. There’s some stuff to finish, of course: two videos, one of which I have control over and one not, and one more song contest to enter. It would be good to schedule another Failed Economy Show benefit for the Food Pantry—maybe this one could be timed for around Thanksgiving. And I should hit up some of the venues around Manzanita, Nehalem and Wheeler that book solo-or-duo acoustic acts, and see if they’d be interested in me. Before the memory of the Hoffman Center Talent Show fades completely from folks’ consciousness.

And sad news: the Oyster Shooters, one of this area’s most famous rock bands (and arguably the best), have broken up after ten years in business. That leaves, I think, a huge void in the local music scene. Could Deathgrass fill it? Doubtful—it’s a different style of music—but there may be a few opportunities, for us and for others. There is a Depression-driven demand for local live music that seems to be getting bigger.

Joe